Pauls Rants & Revelations

Don’t ask me what’s with the title, I just thought it sounded neat (plus I always wanted to start with a title like that, so there).

Hopefully this will be my last political rant (yay) if/when the new president does something to really get on my tits.

Its been about a week since President-Elect Obama was named. And its been a somewhat tumultous time in some parts of the country and in some homes. Mostly, I going off of what people I know are saying. And some of what they are saying is downright scary.

One fellow I know and I got into a discussion about what will happen in the coming 4 years under Obama. He had his doubts (as do a lot of people) but what irritated me was that he voiced his opinion in a short sentence:

“Well there goes the country.”, he said.

I promptly flicked him in the nose and asked him to please explain what me meant by that, seeing as he voted for Bush twice and for McCain. He said that with all the threats America is facing, we need to have a strong military and he believes that won’t happen under a Democrat. Earlier in the prez race, he said that he was  quite displeased with what Bush had done to the country and our international standing, and wanted someone strong to lead us. I pointed out to him that McCain voted mostly the same way in regards to past actions the US had taken. He said that was different because he didnt vote that way all the time.

Apparently, 10% difference is enough for him. I promptly flicked him on the nose again.

Its at this point I should mention that my friend was duct-taped to a chair, unable to move (I love college pranks). He also started spouting the standard Republican rhetoric that the GOP was saying all through the race. I was about to flick him again when a friend of mine (his girl friend) did it for me.

The point is this. I don’t mind what people believe in. I don’t mind that my friend voted differently from me. What I do mind, especially in the case of my friend, is that he was just accepting what was handed to him as the absolute truth, never venturing out in the great world of information to find out for himself if it was true or not.

Now, I’m not so different. A lot of information I get are from people I trust, so I often trust that its true. I would say about half the time I dig deeper to find out more information or to see if its accurate. The other half I usually accept until someone else says something differently or I find info that doesn’t jive with it.

What has me worried is that a number of people I know are just accepting what is handed to them as the truth. Case in point, I played a trick on my friend and emailed him a “live” broadcast (god bless Flash players) of a well known news agency saying that the worlds honey bees have all died. He’s smart and saw this as a bad thing. But instead of calling someone to confirm or even checking the link I sent him he (according to his roommate) started inventorying their pantry and told his roommate that they needed to stock up on non-perishable food for at least a year. He was totally convinced and it took me calling and two other friends going over there that this wasnt true. He then sent me an email virus (god also bless Macs immunity to windows viruses) and a short 11 word sentance on where I should put all my risting farm implements.

To make a long story short; check your facts people. Don’t be sheep. If someone says something outrageous, check it out on your own. If someone else says something innacurrate, make sure it is and confront them about it.

And, Dave, if you are reading this, I am really sorry about the duct-tape trick. So, please, give me back my iPod.

- Cheers

I think that has a nice ring to it.

My wife and I were watching on the CNN website as the poll data started coming in. Aside from the slight anxiety we felt over whether or not Obama was going to win, it was pretty exciting to watch. CNN, for their part, did a pretty good job covering the thing with their real-time data and coverage of the speeches made by both candidates.

For me, though, I was a little nervous watching Obama give his speech to the crowd in Chicago. Not because I had doubts about if he would make a good president (I voted for him, so I obviously thought he could do the job, but because I was worried about some moron going and putting a bullet in him. Call it an irrational fear if you want, but I wasn’t the only one fearing this. Hence why he was flanked by 3 inches of bullet proof glass on either side of them.

So when he finished his speech (his best yet in my opinion) with no bullets flying his way, I was pretty relieved.

Still, that nagging fear will be with me probably until he steps down from office, hopefully in 2016.

But for now, I ‘ll just try to think of how I can best help him bring about the change he promised, happy in the knowledge that my vote made a difference and elected a man who, I think, deserves to be my President.

-Cheers

Its election day in the United States. And on this important day, I have only a short message to say.

Dear America, Please don’t screw this up.

- Thank You

So its no secret that I am voting for Obama (see my previous post, Vote).

This, I think, is a fine thing to do. Not fine as in grand, but fine as in generally acceptable. However, some of my close friends have stated that this may have been a, not necessarily bad, but at the least a somewhat dangerous thing to do.

My wife said that I should keep my official position to myself. The logic behind this being that nobody wants to be to blame for putting the wrong person in office should things not get better. She wanted the ability, I think, to participate in a thrashing of the candidate along with her friends should they be doing so. Following the crowd in the simplest sense. While it may go deeper than that, that is what it seems like to me. Perhaps she simply wanted to avoid any unseemly remark by the same friends if they knew her political position. We tend not to talk too much about politics since I enjoy sleeping indoors.

My friend though expanded in a different direction when I asked him what he thought of it. He said that its understandable to keep such things to yourself for security reasons. If you back the wrong horse, so to speak, and the more militant portions of our civilian population know about it, you could potentially be making yourself a target should these yahoos decide to get aggressive.

Leave it to my friend to instill that extra bit of paranoia into my life (thanks Lindberg Baby).

I can certainly understand that particular position when it comes to telling the world who you are backing. However I cannot understand why people are afraid to say who they are voting for when it comes to possible arguments from their peers. These same people will tell a random stranger calling their phone asking who they are voting for. They will also post onto forums who they are voting for. They do this, I believe, because they think they have a certain amount of security in their anonymity.

This, however, is not true. You are not anonymous. As a web developer, I know how easy it is to get anyone’s life history and vital info with a few simple searches. And even thought I know this, I still spout to the world my choice. Am I crazy? Am I asking for a beat down from some militant wacko with too many guns?

No, I say. I simply believe that we should not have to hide something that we believe in from either invisible threats or from our friends and family. I also believe that we should not fear those that would sway our opinions and thoughts under duress or through fear.

But mostly because I know that should some ass-hat come to my door yelling at me and telling me I’m wrong and going to hell for my choice, I can either cause them great physical harm (if needed only) or verbally abuse them to the point of tears. Telemarkers, Jehovas Witnesses, bill collectors and Mormons are already aware of this.

In short, I say don’t fear what may or may not happen should you choose to voice your opinion on something that your name is on. After all, if you are afraid to tell people who know who you are what you believe, then you shouldn’t bother voting.

OK. Let the comment spam and rude comments begin.

- Cheers

You know you want to.

- Cheers

I have been trying my best to spread word about Ron Paul. I really think that he can be a very good President for our troubled country.

However, lets face facts. barring a couple of well placed assassins bullets in the leading Republican runners, it is not going to happen. This is hard for me to admit, mind you, so please don’t go off on one of those rants anti-Paul folks tend to favor.

So who, then, should I put my vote to for the next President?

Hillary Clinton (Dem)? Nay, I say, as a bigger hypocrite I have seldom seen. She actually came to my little corner of the world and had I actually cared enough about it, I would have gone down to the rally just to start some shit. But that is past and I care little of her fate.

McCain or Huckabee (Rep)? Sadly, I hate both of them. Neither of them are, in my humble opinion, smart or display any definite leadership. Chowder-heads, the both of them.

Obama? Probably, as I cannot see any other logical choice. He is smart, charismatic, seems a natural leader, and is honest more than anything.

Yea, I’ll probably vote for Obama.

Sidenote: I just read my voters pamphlet, and I can feel a lot better voting for Obama now. In the descriptions of the candidates and their little blurbs about themselves, Clinton said that she has plans about fixing things. Not what she would do, but that she has plans (she said this not less than 6 times). Obama, on the other page (ha ha), laid out what he is going to do plain as day. He is going to do these things, in this way. Not once did the word ‘plan’ come into the description. So yea, Obama it is.

-Cheers

After viewing the caucuses results so far, I must say that I am not very happy with where my choice, Ron Paul, is standing.

Garnering less then 15% at any given race, it seems that either the campaign managers are lousy at their jobs, or that the voters of this great country are blind. Or possibly both if the last person I talked politics with is any indication.

The Republican nomination has dwindled from 9 to now 3 candidates, Paul among them, but he is still performing only marginally better then the start. Huckabee and McCain are duking it out for the lead but I wouldn’t trust them to run a bake sale, much less our country. And as far as the Democrats are concerned, I really hope that Obama wins if Paul is out of the running, but I am still going to be working to see Paul in office.

For those few who know me, you know I hate politics so you can understand the gravity of the above statement. I will seriously do what I can to help out. Who knows, perhaps another Republican candidate will drop and the other will come ill or something. Then it will only be Paul to take the nomination.

Until that hope comes about, I’ll just keep to good old fashion campaigning.

-Cheers

You know why I like Ron Paul?

Well, I’ll tell you why. Because he does not scare the shit out of me whenever he speaks. Because he is a likable guy (so likable that I just donated another $5, which isn’t a lot but its the only time I ever gave money to a candidate).

Because when I checked out his track record, which is freely available on his site as well as other sources, he actually seemed like a politician who takes his job seriously. Who actually works for the betterment of the USA, not just to make a buck from his office.

And because when compared to the other candidates that are bidding for the presidency, I see him telling America as a whole about the things that have to be done to fix this country, not about how he alone would fix them if he were president, but what any president has to do. To me he is saying “Here is what has to be done and if no one else is going to do it then I will”.

Now I am not to most politically minded person on the planet. I, in point of fact, hate politics with the fire of a thousand suns. So if you have a problem with what I say or what I believe (*cough* personallimburgbaby *cough*) then feel free to correct me on it.

-Cheers

Its quite sad. 10 years ago we seemed to be quite a decent country. But nowadays more and more news articles come out describing events and happenings that I would not have believed possible in this country.

Heres a quick list just from today:

• 1000 people issue a citizens arrest on Pres. Bush
• A high school girl has her wrist broken by a security guard for dropping cake
• Bush caught lying about 9/11 (with video)
• Chicago cops are investigated for 5000 incidents of abuse
• High school student suspended for wearing John Edwards tshirt.
• Religious group get $100k to improve science with creationism views

The headlines were enough to make me gag, but actually reading the articles made me rather revolted. I am not even sure, from reading the articles among other sources, what the hell is even going on in this country. All I can see is a lot of our countries allies are pissed and our enemies are laughing. Our citizens are angered and our politicians are deaf.

About the only good thing to come out of the news today s a rather good article from the Consumerist about how to properly write to congress and say your piece.

I think I’ll do just that now. Here is the Consumerist article if you are interested.

-Cheers

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority – Benjamin Franklin

This was a great read that asks a lot of questions that many Americans are asking themselves. Read it now.

When did America become a nation of frightened wimps? | steve-olson.com

-Cheers